The Tale of a Time Long Past
by AbjectTerrors
Summary: Numair finds and interesting tome filled with legend. Or is it truth?
1. Prologue

_ In a time long ago, long before the world was as we know it, there were living legends of the like we could never imagine. The truth has been lost to the ages, but as in all legends, there is a seed of truth._

_ Their story starts when they are no more than ten years old. Each was left to fend for themselves, until they were saved. This is the tale of the Circle of Magic. A noble, a Trader, a thief, and a merchant, forced to be together, a stitchwitch, a smithmage, a greenmage, and a weather witch._

_ The first link is a small girl, with cornflower blue eyes. Trapped in a cellar, the only living person in the palace, while her family lay dead from a deadly pox. Her nurse, who had trapped her there to save her, had been killed by a mob within earshot. To stay sane, and keep the light from her dying lamp, she coaxed the flame into a braid, braiding the silks until she was found. Unable to see from staying in the dark so long, and then blinded by the light. She spent days listening to the constant clacking of looms. This was the noble, the stitchwitch._

_ The second link is another girl, this one dark and strong. During an early spring storm, her family's ship was sunk, leaving her as the only survivor. The suraku she salvaged kept her alive for three days, as she floated on her makeshift raft. This was the Trader, the smithmage._

_ The third link was the lone boy, a slight child. Left as an orphan at the young age of four, he was soon taken into a thieves' gang. After being convicted for the third and final time, he was sentenced to the docks. This was the thief, the greenmage._

_ The fourth and final link was the final girl, a portly redhead. Passed from family member to family member, and then finally given to a temple, all who knew her were scared of her. Elemental or possessed, they feared and hated her. After being passed along for most of her life and growing up hating everyone, she was finally saved and sent to another temple. This was the merchant, the weather witch._

_ The man who saved them is lost to legend. Nothing is known of him besides his mage-name, Goldeye. He was the merchant's teacher. He found each of them in their various hells, whether it was a sewer, the middle of an ocean, a courtroom, or a temple. He brought them to a place where they could grow, hopefully safely._

_ They never lasted in the dorms. The noble was constantly in trouble for sneaking off into the loom houses. The Trader was teased and bullied and attacked for being who she was. The thief was thrown out for false accusations of theft and for having knives. The merchant was aloof and constantly abrupt to the Dedicates and other girls. One by one, they made their way to Discipline Cottage._

_ At this cottage, there were two women. Lark and Rosethorn, great mages in their own rights. Their real names, once again, have been lost to history. They took the four in, separate, and by the time they'd lived there for a year, they were closer than family._

Numair gently closed the tome, setting it reverently on the table by his bed. He went to sleep that night dreaming of a world unknown to him, filled with a magic unlike any other and knowledge lost to history.

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**My lovely readers, how I've missed you! I'm back once more, and I thin I'll be able to finish this one!**


	2. Spun

_ After the spring equinox, earthquakes had become common. At least six had occurred. A larger one was scryed to come. But it wasn't supposed to reach them. But reach them it did. And when it did, devastation followed._

_ The four children had saved a young pup while at market one day, and as we join their tale, they are chasing this dog, who would grow and grow and grow until his name of Little Bear finally made sense. They chased him under the bowl of the temple, finding hidden veins of coal in the bed. Just when they had captured the dog, the largest earthquake of the summer arrived. The one that was never supposed to reach them._

_ Their lamp guttered out, leaving them in complete darkness. Four children, no more than ten years old, were now trapped in a small cavern made of flammable coal. With their separate magics, there was no hope for survival. The merchant couldn't reach fresh air, the thief couldn't reach the plant roots, the Trader couldn't hold the cavern safe and reach the heat below, and the noble couldn't do anything. Or so she thought._

_ Trapped beneath the Trader, who was holding up the coal with her own physical strength, the noble sewing bag was stuck in between them. Her spindle was digging into the noble's chest, and she remembered there was one way she could prove herself useful. Tired of feeling worthless and crippled by her fear of the dark. She moved out from underneath the Trader, to begin to dig deep into her bag, pulling out her spindle and her first thread. She passed the thread to the three others, showing them to put their hands on a lump and put some themselves into it._

_ Pulling that the threads of magic given to her, she began to spin. She took the four weak threads and spun them into one thicker, stronger thread. When the others began to weaken, she poured everything she had into it._

_She saved them, that night. Without her ability to spin pure magic, they would have died down there. Without her, they others wouldn't have been strong enough to do what they did. __Her single thread had spun itself into a circle, with each lump spaced equally._

_ They were brought out of the ground and up to the surface by their teachers: Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine, and Niko. The four of them were now linked in ways no one could ever begin to imagine._

Once again, Numair set the tome down. How did mere children change the very _essence_ of their magic? The thought was mind-boggling.

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**Should I keep going? Is this any good? And I think this will end with six chapters, for The Circle of Magic quartet.**


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